Internet Protocol (IP) networks are now being used to transport many types of network traffic. Some of those network traffic types have robustness requirements that were not meant to be supported by IP. For instance, fault (or failure) management in IP networks is not a native functionality thereof. Several mechanisms have been developed to increase survivability to failures over IP. These mechanisms can be classified in two main categories: protection and restoration. The protection mechanisms are designed to react to a failure quickly by redirecting traffic on alternate already established network routes thereby minimizing the impact on the network traffic. To be effective, the protection mechanisms require a level of redundancy of the network's resources that has a cost (e.g., in terms of establishment and maintenance). As for the restoration mechanisms, they assign the network resources necessary dynamically to recover upon acknowledgement of a failure. They are thus slower compared with the protection mechanisms, but have the advantage of using less network resources in normal faultless operation.
One of the weaknesses of the existing protection and restoration mechanisms is that they are setup on particular routes or route portions without considering that different types of traffic with different requirements may be transiting thereon. In addition, the current protection and restoration mechanisms are bound to specific network layers used for specific related services in the network. As a consequence, determination of existing protection or restoration capabilities are likely to be made without taking into account the protection and restoration capabilities that might exist at other layers. This results in network resources waste.
As can be appreciated, there are needs identified to better take traffic type in consideration in protection and restoration mechanisms and to improve utilization of protection and restoration capabilities present at more than one layers.
The present invention aims at providing solutions to some or all of the identified needs.